A Secular Tamil Saint? Karunanidhi’s Use of Divine Imagery in Dravidian Politics

This article explores the near-divine persona of the past DMK chief minister, M. Karunanidhi, resulting from the imagery of his political monuments as well as his image debates with the current AIADMK chief minister, J. Jayalalitha. In Tamil Nadu today, political leaders hold an almost sacred identity that is often founded on a reinterpretation of cultural heritage. This has mainly come about through the use of Hindu imagery that has been propagated in various modern medias (such as film, television, and campaign posters) along with the building of expansive political monuments, sculptures, and memorials. As rivals for nearly three decades, the image strategies of Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha have taken on god-like proportions with the frequent creation and destruction of public monuments around Chennai, and this study offers a uniquely Tamil, socioreligious methodology focused on the concept of near divinity to explain the unusual treatment and nationalistic appeal of these artworks.